Originally named in memory of Lady Powerscourt, one of the 'Chief Women among the Brethren,' this is simply a place for me to collect stray thoughts about the Bible, women, the Brethren, Bible translation, manuscripts, writing systems, movies, books....

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Index: CBMW, Grudem, kephale

Everything I have written on kephale has been in spontaneous posts in response to posts elsewhere in the blogosphere. I have never had any intention of examining this issue in depth and I deeply regret that I have not so far organized my material on this topic.

I have also written on several other aspects of the CBMW platform and Grudem's books. Let me summarize.

Anthropos

I first became aware that there was a belief among some in the Christian community that the Greek word anthropos meant "man" as in male, and this was one reason for why the TNIV was a "gender neutral" version. I found that the ESV had translated 2 Tim. 2:2 anthropos (pl) as "men" and in that way gave the impression that the scriptures did not give women the command to teach.

I was truly disturbed when I read this. It was one of the times Ifelt that the campaign against women was deliberate and involved waffling on the actual meanings of Greek words.

Adelphos

Around the same time, I read the TNIV and the Gender Neutral Bible Controversy. There, on page 426 I read that Grudem had drafted the guidelines for the TNIV without checking meanings in the Liddell-Scott Lexicon. He admitted that in May of 1997 he did not know that adelphos (pl) meant "brothers and sisters." I was stunned. How could a Bible translator not know the most basic meanings of very simple words?

The CBMW had criticized the TNIV translators for translating aner (man. citizen, person) as "person." In this case, I wrote a full article on the subject. It became evident to me as I wrote this article that Grudem has not followed up on all the examples of aner in the LSJ lexicon but had jumped to the conclusion that aner always referred to a male. That does seem obvious. It is, however, not factual.

This is a highly technical argument, but the upshot is that neither Dan Wallace nor Michael Burer have responded to Linda Belleville's excellent critique of their work in attempting to prove that Junia was not an apostle. I reference the work done by Belleville, Epp and Bauckham. However, my writing benefited from what they wrote, and has additional content. The conclusion is that Chrysostom, a native speaker of Greek,recognized Junia as a female apostle and he was a native speaker of Greek.

Once again we are back to rough notes. To a certain extent, I am expressing some tentative opinions here. I have since come to the conclusion that while the head, in Greek, was sometimes but not always considered the ruling part of the person, the expression kephale (head) was not used to indicate the authority of one person over the other. The examples offered by Grudem to prove this case have not been accurate representations of the Greek.

19) Philo, Moses 2.30: As the head is the ruling place in the living body, so Ptolemy [Ptolemy Philadelphos] became among kings.

Cervin does not think that head means ruler here because Philo says that Philadelphos is the head of kings, not in the sense of ruling them, but as the preeminent king among the rest. Philadelphos is the top of the kings just as the head is the top of an animal’s body. . . . This example is therefore to be rejected (p. 100).”

Grudem continues in RBMW Appendix 1B to discuss this example. However, he fails to show that it means "authority over." This is Grudem's best piece of evidence and proves the opposite of his thesis, which is that kephale means authority. It obviously doesn't. The rest of Grudem's examples are similar. However, what is the point of quoting them if Grudem just recycles rejected evidence?

Authentew

Here are a few posts on the Greek word authentew - to usurp authority or dominate. This is the word commonly translated "to exercize authority" in 1 Tim. 2:12. However, the Latin Vulgate translated that word as dominare. The notion that this verse had "exercize authority" in it is relatively recent. What follows is a rather academic look at the lexical evidence for the meaning of authentew.

12 comments:

What a great resource, Suzanne! Thanks for taking the time to organize this index. It will make finding this information much easier for people who are searching for the refutations that Grudem and CBMW will never make public.

I used to really argue against it all but now I just think its crazy. It couldn't be crazier. How could the manhood group link father and son to husband and wife, and who wants a totally subordinated wife anyway? I mean, what healthy human being.

However, I do have something that I might post on this in a few days. IN the meantime, use the search dialogue box in the upper left hand corner to search "subordination." I am sure you will find plenty.

Aner as personOne of the major complaints that the CBMW has against the TNIV is that it sometimes translates aner as “person.” Grudem writes the most delicious comments sometimes. I just have to share this,

I could add a note here on the Greek word aner: Greek scholars for hundreds of years have known that aner means “man” not “person.” Recently, with no new evidence, but under cultural pressure, some have discovered a new meaning, “person.”There has been no cultural pressure to establish that aner means person. That is utterly ridiculous! Aner always did mean person. Let’s look back at some Loeb classics and other good stuff. I don’t have these books on hand but they are available, I understand. This is not some secret cache of books on the index and unavailable to CBMW. This is Plato and this is the way he has been translated from beginning to end of the last century. What cultural pressure?

… in which a member of our community–be he of the male or female sex, young or old,–may become a good citizen, possessed of the excellence of soulwhich belongs to man. Plato’s Laws 6. 770d.

(In this sentence, the Greek word ανθρωπος is translated as “man” generic, “the excellence of soul which belongs to man”, that is, the human, either male or female; and the word ανηρ is translated as citizen, either male or female.)

every individual, because of his greed for silver and gold,is willing to toil at every art and device, noble or ignoble,if he is likely to get rich by it, Plato’s Laws. 8.831d.

f) ανδρες as ‘friends’

ὦ πάντων ἀνδρῶν ἄριστοι

Most excellent friends, … Plato’s Laws. 5.741a.

g) ανδρες as ‘citizens’

νείμασθαι δὲ δὴ καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας δώδεκα μέρη

And he must divide the citizens also into twelve parts, … Plato’s Laws. 5.745d.

I hope this gives readers some idea of why aner can sometimes be translated into English as “person.” This move is motivated by scholarship and not feminist presuppositions. I have lots of those, but the notions about language that I share with some of the complementarian translators of the TNIV are not due to my “feminist presuppositions.” No, they are due to my advanced age, as a matter of fact!

PS This is only the evidence from Plato. It was a good day for reading Plato when I did this study. There are lots more examples elsewhere.

I pray that one day CBMW will take down the signatures against the TNIV and write a letter of apology to the translators of the TNIV.